I thank you for all for coming to this press conference where we will give you an update on our Recruitment Drive and what will happen after it.

The 2018 General Election – Election Officials Recruitment Drive is scheduled to finish on the 27th of August, 2017 at major town centres around the country.

The Recruitment Drive commenced on the 28th of July, 2017 and was run periodically around the
various town centres around the country.

The Fijian Elections Office would like to begin by offering its greatest appreciation to all the site owners that gave us their buildings as well as school administrators for allowing us time to use the classrooms during this holidays to conduct the Recruitment Drive. Thank you very much.

Coming to the numbers in terms of recruitment, as we had earlier advertised, the Fijian Elections Office was looking for applications of up to 17,000 Fijians.

17,000 applications would allow us sufficient opportunity to conduct a very rigorous, merit based selection process to identify the best candidates to work at the polling stations around the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have worked out based on the current number of polling stations, which is 2149, that the FEO will actually need around 10,102 Election Officials and 12,522 is what we are looking for.

In actual fact ladies and gentlemen, we can do with the 10,102 applications. Our requirements for each divisions are as follows:

In terms of Divisions, we need 4660 staff in the Central Division. We need 3673 staff in the Western Division and 1600 in the Northern division and around 169 staff in the eastern division.
Our statistics as at yesterday’s recruitment are as follows:

In the Central Division, we have received 5074 applications. In the Western Division, we have received 2885 applications and in the Northern Division we have received 1355 applications. We have not yet started the Recruitment Drive in the Eastern Division which will take place in Tavuki, Kadavu and in Levuka in September.

Therefore ladies and gentlemen, we have now received a total of 9314 applications as at last night. This has given us sufficient number of individuals for us to start training.

Before I go any further, I would just like to mention that we still have positions available for around 1000 people in the Western Division and around 400 people in the Northern Division which we hope will be filled tomorrow and Sunday during the opening hours of the Recruitment
Drive.

Coming back to the training ladies and gentlemen, training for Election Officials who have sat the test will commence next week. We understand that there is a lot of eagerness amongst applicants to find out when they will be invited for training.

As we have stated before, you will be notified through a text message as to when they can come and attend training. We will also try and publish the training locations and the reference numbers allocated to those training on the FEO website.

Any confusions arising out of this can be clarified by calling the number 1501.

The training will be conducted on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from the coming week. Trainings will be conducted during the morning sessions, afternoon sessions or evening sessions on these days. And priorities and allocations of persons will be made based on the person’s selected choice at the time of making the application.

If you are unable to attend at the time of the training allocated to you, please contact the Recruitment Assistants to change your allocated time.

I just wanted to also mention that not everybody has to be trained in the first week. Do not rush. The trainings will continue until every person who has applied has attended the training.

Also, it is important that when you come for training, if you have not brought any of the required documents till now, you must bring it at training.

In the event you do not bring all the required documents like the bank statement at the training, we will not be able to process your pay and therefore it is important you ensure all your documents are up to date with us.

Attending of the training comes with an allowance $45 inclusive of your FNPF and other taxes and this will be deducted before you are paid.

So ladies and gentlemen, the Recruitment Drive is now in its last few days and we invite any Fijian, who has not yet found the time or the opportunity, to now take advantage of these last few days so that you can be included in the first round of the Election Officials Recruitment Drive for the next General Election.